Was Ferrari sandbagging during testing at Jerez? Maybe so, as it emerges that the Maranello outfit did not have their new F14T cranked up to maximum power.

Auto Motor und Sport on Friday revealed that, having studied the data from the recent opening winter test, the top five places in terms of top speed were occupied by Mercedes-powered cars.

Topping the lot was the newly Mercedes-powered Williams of Felipe Massa, who tripped the radar at 286 km/h on the front straight, and 307 km/h on the fastest part of the southern Spanish circuit.

Over the four days the Ferrari F14T, with Kimi Raikkonena and Fernando Alonso at the wheel did a combined 252 laps, equivalent to 1116 kilometres around the former grand prix venue.

In contrast, the nearest Ferrari-powered car was the works Ferrari F14T driven by Kimi Raikkonen, with just 268 km/h on the straight and a top speed of 289 km/h, which was considerably down on the leading Mercedes-Benz powered car.

AM&S Michael Schmidt reports that Ferrari has admitted that they did not deploy full power at Jerez, where the all-new and sophisticated V6 turbo Power Units were getting their first real running.

Mercedes’ Niki Lauda, however, said there was no sandbagging in the silver camp.

“We went to the limit that we could, as it makes no sense to go deliberately slowly. You learn nothing [from that],” said the multiple F1 World Champion and Mercedes Team Chairman.

Sakhir, 18 February –Scuderia Ferrari is now in Bahrain and team personnel are preparing the garage at the Sakhir circuit, where the second pre-season test gets underway tomorrow. There are four days of track action, running up to Saturday.

With the track located on the edge of the desert, temperatures are ideal for testing, currently hovering around the 20 degree mark. Less pleasant is the wind which is blowing hard today, bringing quite a bit of sand onto the track. One cannot therefore expect to see any particularly fast times on the first day, as the surface will be rather dirty. Fernando Alonso will be first on track for Scuderia Ferrari, running on the first two days, before handing over to Kimi Raikkonen for Friday and Saturday.

The emphasis over the next four days will be mainly on checking all the systems and control parameters of the F14 T. In addition, the programme will include set-up work, helped by the fact that Sakhir is a more representative circuit for comparing the data obtained over the past few days in the simulator, as well on the tyre front. The engineers will also be relying on the expertise of Alonso and Raikkonen to move forward with the development of the car. Finally, great attention will be paid to the behaviour of the 059/3 power unit, which has been the focus of a lot of work in the last few weeks. In fact, the power unit has to be presented to the FIA to be signed off as homologated by 28 February.

Slow testing lap times expected as winds and sandstorms loom in Bahrain

Typical temperatures and climatic conditions during February and March in the Gulf region tend to be moderate and idyllic most of the time, however dust storms are common, and are looking likely to impact testing in Bahrain this week.

For the past couple of days the region, from Dubai in the south through to Kuwait in the north and Bahrain in the middle, is experiencing strong winds, dust storms and even rain.

Thus F1 teams setting up in the Sakhir paddock are expecting a very ‘green’ track, exacerbated by sand being blown on to the surface. This is sure to negatively impact lap times around the grand prix venue, especially early on in proceedings.

The Ferrari team explained on their website, “With the track located on the edge of the desert, temperatures are ideal for testing, currently hovering around the 20 degree mark. Less pleasant is the wind which is blowing hard today [Tuesday], bringing quite a bit of sand onto the track.”

“One cannot therefore expect to see any particularly fast times on the first day, as the surface will be rather dirty,” the team added.

Last year, at the end of FP1 during the Bahrain GP weekend, Felipe Massa (Ferrari) ended the session fastest of all with the best time of 1:34.487 – on a ‘green’ track. By qualifying the next day Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) had found two seconds and was down to 1:32.330.

At Jerez last month, the current V6 turbo powered cars were five seconds slower than their V8 normally aspirated ancestors were a year earlier. Thus the expected lap times during testing, in ideal conditions around Bahrain International Circuit, should be in the 97 seconds to 100 seconds zone.

However early on few drivers are likely to dip below 1:40.000 mark, which is about the same lap times GP2 cars manage around the venue.

In February 2009, during testing in Bahrain, strong winds and a subsequent sandstorm forced officials to cancel a day’s running. (GP247)